Another McDonald’s drive-thru story but probably the guy that wouldn’t pull forward for 30 fucking seconds for fresh fries.
I was a shift manager at the time and had my staff all hyped up during a busy lunch rush. We were kicking ass — no mistakes, drive-thru times were insanely low and everything was moving. I told some guy “could you please pull forward for just 30 seconds, I have the next five cars’ orders right here and we’re just waiting for fresh fries.”
The guy lost it, started screaming “I won’t fucking pull forward,” “this is bullshit,” all the typical douchebag stuff.
I closed the window and told my staff not to hand him anything. I ran outside with five bags, walked around his car and handed them all to the next cars. I told them “he didn’t want to pull forward” and made sure to point so the guy could see me ratting him out. They all took off fast and right as I walked inside the damn fries were ready so I bagged them up, opened that window and told him to have a “wonderful day.”I loved seeing his stupid turn face beet red with embarrassment.
My second worst Karen was the woman who complained that we were too fast and called corporate to complain.
A friend of mine worked as a manager at a pizza chain and had a customer do something similar. They were prepping a basic medium pepperoni pizza for a different customer when she (Karen) walked in. The person who'd called it in was a regular who wouldn't make it in for 20 minutes, so they gave the first pizza to the Karen. Same order, done quicker.
She threw it at them because "there's no it was fresh out of the oven so quickly. "
Of course this was After they'd explained that they'd been preparing the same pizza when she came in.
I’ve seen this a lot in fast food. Their order (for the exact same thing) would be impossible to make that fast fresh, so they lose their shit if you use your brain and give them the existing one that was made minutes (seconds?) ago.
Such simple-minded thinking.
We had another customer come in for like three days in a row ordering fries without salt, thinking they’re soooo smart (always during rush too when fries were super fresh). I watched them add salt to them after sitting down every time. On day four I got sick of them so I made fries without salt at the very start of rush and put them aside for an hour or two just so that when they did it again they got the shittiest, oldest fries.
Definitely not a professional move but I got my revenge.
I treat people like that like I'm dealing with a rabid dog. I detach emotionally and treat them like a thing to be careful around.
I used to keep my voice and tone professional with the fake smiling and shit, but my facial expressions never lied.
I was working drive through at McDonald's in the early 2000's and this old guy pulls up to my window. I say (as an Australian in an Australian drive through) "G'day mate, what can I get you?"
Well this guy loses his shit, flies into a rant about how I'm not his mate and he doesn't even know me and how dare I presume to be his mate. I say "I'm sorry, it's just a turn of phrase, what can I get you?"
He continues to rant and demands to see my manager. So I say sure, close the window and mosey on over to my manager and explain my situation. He looks a little bewildered but says "no stress I'll deal with it, just wait round the corner."
He walks into my booth andi hear him say "G'day MATE, what can I get for you?" The guy loses his brains for a few more minutes at the audacity. To which my manager says "I understand, what can I get you?" The guy finally orders and we all moved on with our lives.
Freaking out at the people who are about to serve you food isn’t a great idea.
Dude, seriously. The only time I genuinely had a problem with a server that being kind & trying to talk couldn't resolve, I politely told the manager I wasn't comfortable being there, paid for my drink and canceled the food order.
No need to make a big deal out of it, and once you get on a server's bad side, fuck it.
Here in Devon, the local phrase from a certain age of woman server is "Hello, my lover". Catches the odd person out but you'd have to be a dick to kick off about it.
A few years back I had a fall out with a neighbour over parking. Im British and called him “mate”, he lost his shit over that, anyway he’s a dick so I called him mate a lot more.
Not that it would justify it at all, but was he Australian? I like to imagine this bewildered a-hole getting increasingly pissed at what he perceives as a transgression of social boundaries by every Australian he meets on his holiday.
What a bizarre thing to be upset about. It sounds like the guy had a screw loose.
Yeah, maybe he was just having a rough day
At one point I had a job handing out sample chocolate at supermarkets. I was setting up my stand. This was during covid, so we had to disinfect everything, set up a clear shield on the stand, plus put on gloves and hand out chocolate with disinfected tongs. I also had to get changed into my uniform.
I said I'll give you some if you come back in five minutes as I'm still setting up.
She lost her mind. Started calling me a fucking bitch, bad sales person, that she knows the owner of the chocolate company and will get me fired. Complained about me to the supermarket manager. When I went to change into uniform she was following me around still carrying on.
After I had set up she came back and said I'll have that chocolate now. I refused to serve her. I said sorry I don't need to take your abuse. She responded by saying you're the abusive one lol. Wild.
Good job on not serving her. Unfortunately in service culture where the customer is always right, there often is no blowback from customers being rude or unreasonable. There needs to be pushback, even small victories are still a win.
Thank you. No way I was giving her free stuff after she spoke to me like that. I'm not encouraging that behaviour.
The customer is always right in matters of taste.
That's awful. Btw what did the manager say?
Not a lot. I had a customer witness all this who also told the manager. So while the manager was on my side, he didn't say much as to how to handle it.
Total brain damage on some of the Karens.
I guess they see themselves as strong independent women. :)
In the mid-90's I was working as a cashier for a regional chain that would buy cheap shit from China and sell it to social security recipients (who back then were prone to hoarding because they were Great Depression children). After tax (sorry, entitlements, like social security and medicare which I'm suuuuure I'll get) at minimum wage it was slightly less than $2/hour in that state. So every day was all checking out social security recipients blowing their checks on $500 of 10 cent plastic gnomes filling their cart. We got in at one point "Candles from the Holy Land" (which might have been from a Taoist holy land, but...) marked 30 cents but rang up as $3 (this chain preyed on old people so upmarking v listed price was common but 10x was something you'd notice buying a cart full of them expecting to pay $500 and it's $5000) so I had to manually correct per candle whole carts of candles from the holy land on checkout. One time I did this and the elderly couple buying 100 candles from the holy land asked "why do you keep typing all this stuff on the cash register per candle" so I told them "well, this is priced at 30 cents but rings up as three bucks so I need to correct it, but I can't do a price change on multiples at once." They check out and then the customer after them is this elderly meth head lady with no teeth who gets ALLLL up in my shit "I'VESHOPPEDHERESINCE [pretty sure 10+ years before this chain or one store existed] AND THEY WOULD NEVER MISPRICE AN ITEM!!!!!" And she goes to the manager and gets me fired.
Just back track a second…a customer got you fired cause you were making things cheaper for her?
Cheaper for other customers, the meth head lady wasn't described as buying those same candles. She seemed to have taken issue with OP besmirching the good name of the retail store that scams elderly people by pointing out that they'd made a mistake on their labelling. So depending how you look at it, it's even worse because the situation didn't have anything to do with her.
In the mid-’90s*
My mother.
She was returning something on a slow night at Best Buy.
We did not make it past the tween greeter at the front door before she unleashed!
Mom went off. The way she was talking, you would think he, personally, did something to harm her. This kid was standing there, shrinking away, with what looked like his girlfriend standing next to him. He was a door greeter, had no control or decisive role in any way.
Of course, she called a manager.
I feel real bad for that kid but love embarrassing my mother by recounting that true tale to others.
My mum used to be that way sometimes, but we've called her out on it enough times in public that she knows that she doesn't have our support and she has slowly learned to stop doing that
Pour one out for all the unfortunate souls actually named Karen who aren't Karens
There's a reason they got the generic name Karens.
Like Gary (Garys aren't Karens), there aren't many around now but the few I've ever come across really were worthy of these name.
Probably because it was a popular name for a while so the odds they'd have that name are good.
That would have to be the manager who complained to my manager that I was too friendly and wasting his time by saying hello and asking how his day was going every time we talked on the phone. 😐
I used to work at a auto shop and one time a lady came in wanting an estimate to replace the majority of the exhaust on her car. We didn't do exhaust work so the only way for me to price that out for her was to go based off the purchase of all the components from the parts shop which would have been way more expensive than a shop that actually does exhaust work. I told her as such and then she insisted that I price it out anyway which took forever because I had to find a diagram of her cars exhaust and cross reference all the parts with the parts shop website and then the entire time she's bitching at me about how long this is taking. I continued to explain that going to an exhaust shop would be cheaper and she continued to insist. When I handed her the estimate she glanced at it, laughed in my face, and stormed out. That shit happened almost 2 decades ago and it still pops into my head frequently.
We didn't do exhaust work
I'd have looked up the blue book value of her car, doubled it, then gave that number and said "plus labor".
That probably wouldn't have been too far off.
My ex wife. Imagine a Karen. Now imagine she's a solicitor who believes she is the law - no, not the police/a police officer, literally the law .. statute .. Acts.
That went as you might imagine it did.
Donald Trump
Currently about 100% of the maga trumpers
